Reviews
Veteran of the American Civil War, failed husband, ex-lawman now turned novelist, Denton is an uncomfortable outsider in class-ridden turn-of-the-century England. But he is about to be plunged into the dark heart of a society where privilege and propriety hide unspeakable horrors. When a seeming madman turns up at his door declaring he has just seen Jack the Ripper, Denton dismisses his lurid ravings as the syptoms of sexual dementia. But when a prostitute's horribly mutilated body is discovered that night in the Minories, Denton suspects there is a connection between the two events. While the police investigation grinds towards a seemingly pre-ordained conclusion, Denton becomes obsessed with finding out who Stella Minter really was and who killed her - a search that leads him by degrees into London's grim sexual underbelly, and to an uncomfortable confrontation with his own desires.
"Denton is an interesting, if still undeveloped, personality. Struggling to earn a living as a writer, he socialises with the bohemian crowd in their fashionable haunts such as the Café Royal, but is equally at home walking the dangerous streets of London's East End. He is well worth encountering again."
THE TELEGRAPH
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